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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

FBI Crime Report: 2015 one of the safest years on record

The recently released FBI Crime Report for 2015 found
that last year was one of the safest years on record, reported the Huffington Post.

The FBI found an increase of 3.1 percent from the
2014 violent crime rate estimate. But that year-over-year increase only tells
part of the story. Looking at every year since 1996, the violent crime rate has
only been lower in 2013 and 2014.

2015 was safer than any year during the presidencies
of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. Looking
back at trends over the past five and 10 years, the total number of violent
crimes in 2015 was 0.7 percent below the 2011 level and 16.5 percent below the
2006 level. Nevertheless, in a poll conducted
earlier this year by The Huffington Post and YouGov, most Americans incorrectly
believed that crime had risen overall in the past 10 years.

John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University
School of Law, said that even if the jump in the violent crime rate is similar
to jumps seen in the 1990s, the actual effect of this one is much smaller.

“Crime was and remains quite low. Even in terms of
worst case scenario with FBI numbers, things look similar to what they did four
to five years ago,” Pfaff said. “At the time we celebrated those as being
great.”

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.